Hello and welcome to the Gifted Life Podcast where we have conversations about organ, tissue and I know nation. You can always find us at thegiftedlife.org. I'm Roy Steele. I'm Joey Boudreau.
I'm Sarah Blakemore on the podcast today. Our guest is going to tell us about how he's using his journey through transplant and spire others. And we're going to talk about how to battle insecurity. We better get going.
Ready? Here we go. Alright guys, here on the Gifted Life we have a new friend. Are we excited or what?
I'm just like saying his name. Let's just say his name. Go Joe. Trigger, brown, trigger.
Yeah. Rich, trigger, I like hi Rich. Hello there. Hey, Trigger.
Do call me Trigger. In fact, I have people truly that do not know Rich is my real first name. I love Rich. We want to ask you about that name, but it's just cool to say Trigger.
Say it's there. Trigger, trigger. I love it. Alright, so Trigger, you reach out to us, heard about the podcast and say, hey, I think we can team up because our goal is to inspire folks and same on your end.
So man, thanks for doing that. Number one. Oh yeah, sure. You guys sound like you guys doing great stuff and I love partnering with the wonderful people.
So thank you. Yeah. So then we started looking, you know, who is this Trigger? God, like what is it all about?
And we're like, wow. Yeah. You know, we got so many obstacles to get where you are and to be so positive and to do what you do. We're like, we got to talk.
Yeah, I'm going to pick his rate. So you're going to let us do that today. Yeah. dive right in, but you may not get that.
Okay. Good to know. Alright, so can we just go ahead and get the elephant out of the room. Go ahead.
Yeah. Tell us about this name. so I've been a radio broadcasting for, most of my life, 25 years broadcasting and rich bond trigger when you're in a broadcast speaking fast and fluid doesn't always come out. People are listening to you at home, so people have heard Bond trigger, but pair Cambe variation.
So I also am the guy a little bit like Lori, I think, and the personality of the group that you have. I'm gonna be the one that's gonna chime in, jump in first and say something fun. So my personality is one that I'm gonna be the trigger of the room, the trigger and my broadcast partner and I stumbled on that. So he was kind of the straight man and I was kind of the one that would pop off the cannon and trigger is stuck for 25 years.
Providing the color. See my imagination took me a whole different direction. I like your story. That's a story.
I want to know what that was. That's it another episode. But you know, you're on YouTube. You just, you know, you Google trigger a bond trigger and you find these videos.
But if you had to describe what you do daily, what would you say your goal is your job. My job is to quit people to defy the odds in life leadership and public speaking. Those have been my three arenas. That's where I've bumped into life obstacles.
And so I'm passionate about helping people learn how to navigate it all and really live a great life, whether you're a leader, a public speaker or just life hits you upside. You can get back right side up again. So we were reading your story and blown away like how is he where he is the resilience that you got. So can you take can you take a listeners to the beginning of your defying the odds?
What happened when you were a kid? Yeah, actually a birth I was born with a disease. Actually, I should be dead three times now. So at birth, I was diagnosed with CMV.
And at that time in 1965, every child born was dead. I was really one of the first ones in the nation that survived. Even though they told my parents, he'll die within the week. He'll die within two weeks.
Take this child home. He'll die at home. And here I am 54 years later. I was in a severe fire accident that I probably should have died or at least have been blinded through.
I've lived with a stutter all my life. I'm deaf in my left ear probably from the CMV. And I also have bad eyes. So I went through a lot of physical things all my life, including a skin graph that did not work after the fire and probably because of the CMV affected my body.
And you mentioned the CMV. So what exactly is CMV for the audience? Yeah, it's a side on the gallag inclusion disease. Don't tell me how they got the V out of it all.
It's actually a virus. It's actually a virus. So I'm the clinical guy. So that's all I wanted to talk about that for a second.
So it's one of those viruses, especially, you know, things like the flu, the cold, those are all viruses. And CMV is like that on steroids, you know, and of course back then to be able to treat that is really was nothing. So so you can keep going. I just just want to make sure the audience was up to speed with just how serious that was.
Well, and just to say this out loud, Joey, they did not treat me. They honestly said he will die. They had no treatment. So it is really on that whole miracle that I've gotten where I am.
Finally, two years ago, I had liver transplant go back five years ago now. And I was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, unknown cirrhosis of the liver. And started back in 2013. They stumbled upon it by accident.
I thought I had the flu. And the next thing you know, my hemoglobin was at 3.2. They said you should be dead. And I was sitting up laughing and joking with the nurses.
And that's where that whole liver transplant story began. Oh my gosh, I'm sitting here. I'm looking at all the things that you have been able to accomplish, right? So sports broadcaster.
So I'm thinking, Oh gosh, you have stutter. So, you know, how do you overcome that? And then a pastor too? Yes, yes.
I mean, so walk us through like, how did your life take this journey? I was raised in a family belief. My faith has been a huge part of defined the odds. I tell people whether your belief is you need something bigger than yourself to believe it.
Hope is a powerful thing when you have life slam against you. And I always believe because of my faith. I can't get back up. It may not be the same as it was that I can get back up.
So that faith became a part of my ministry calling in life. I've worked with recovering alcoholics and rehab people, most of my adult life in that church ministry setting. So their whole life is about putting the pieces back together. So my defined the odds literally transplanted and became a part of the whole church ministry as well.
So of course, you know, you at some point get really ill, you know, through all these other things that you've got going on and you get really ill with with a liver disease. So can you take us back to that part and what got you into learning about donation and the need for transplant? Yeah. Well, I was shocked.
Literally, I thought I had the flu. I had a friend drop me off at the ER just because and I never got sick back then. And I said, look, I'm not going to do anything major. I may be stuck in the ER forever.
Next thing I know, they put me on a bed and they try to draw blood and they couldn't draw blood. And a couple hours later, but yeah, because the skin was so tight. They said it was alligator skin. And three doctors literally walked in together and said, we're the mitten steam.
You're the most critical man in the building. Your hemoglobin is 3.2 and I'm laughing and they're all laughing. And they said, no, no, this is deadly serious. You're going nowhere.
You should be dead right now. And I walked in on my own power, fully awake. And the doctors can not believe they really thought an ambulance could have brought me in. And from that minute on, I began to learn through some GI beliefs and other episodes.
It took about six months from there, them to finally nail it down. It was liver disease. And then they set us down and said, you're liver is 75% shot and gone. Never coming back.
And today, you need to radically change everything you do. And I just saw a video of you on YouTube talking about your two year anniversary. And I said, oh, he's so well versed in saying what we would encourage folks to do, you know, get the facts, make an educated decision, help us make life happen. Is that kind of your mantra now?
What you do? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's an open book.
People can ask me anything about the entire process. It is a downrolled spiral. Mine was a slow crawl. The melds score didn't bounce around too much.
It was stuck at 16 for a very long time. So a three year slow decline of energy and everything that goes along with the liver failure. And finally, I lost my job. January of 2017, I had to transplant in March of 2017.
So I was working, driving, doing everything up until the very end, which is very unusual. And so he mentioned the melds score. And we've talked about that in previous episodes. And essentially, without getting too technical, it's the score that is attached to someone who has liver disease.
And it kind of gauges just how sick your liver is. So, and that's what we talked about it before about moving up or down the wait list versus the others that are there. So that's how, you know, he mentioned the 16. So it was pretty, pretty bounced around and in state around there.
So that's tough to get transplanted. It just depends on where you're located a lot of times when you have a 16. Sometimes you can be a really sick 16 or sometimes you can be a 16 and still have a year or two left. So that's the challenges that come with waiting.
So how scared were you when they told you? I guess my big question is when you found out you had liver disease and you needed a transplant, that had to be, for everything you've been through, that had to be one of the biggest, you know, whoa moments. Well, I was married at the time and my wife was sitting next to me and her first word was, he never gets sick. What are you talking about?
And yeah, I don't get the flu. I really don't get anything. And so the doctor just looked at us and said, he's already dead at 75%. He's really dead.
He just hasn't caught up to the fact that he's dead. So literally we went home that night, set our three daughters down and they cleaned the covers of all the salt content that dad would normally eat and I went to a low salt diet immediately on the spot. And that was just shocking off. It literally, they said, you have no time.
You need to turn everything around right now. And then I sort of learned how to count boxes in supermarkets and look for low salt diets that I didn't understand to think about it. But you quickly learn, you quickly Google and learn and it did change my entire family. Yeah, so it is a mental barrier, which I talk about with a lot of people.
It's not just the emotional, the physical. There's a lot of mental stuff that goes into going through something like this. So once you found out that you needed a transplant liver transplant, did you learn more about exactly what that donation process was? What's about?
Yeah, actually the doctor did a great job coaching and instructing all the way through it that eventually, because you can't do a partial transplant with 75% gone at that point. So it's got to be a full transplant, which then means you're going to have a organ donation from someone that passes away. And that's something to wrap your head around. And then there's something to really think that for you to live, someone has to die.
We talked about that a lot of the family. We talked about that this is a blessing. This is something that's going to be an amazing gift to us. And so after the transplant just jump ahead a little bit, I did go to a gift of life celebration in Jacksonville and we released a dove to honor that gift of life and honor that.
And probably one of the most emotional things I've ever been a part of and I actually spoke of that, spoke of that event. But to release it and think about this whole process of life and death and people and it really is amazing. And again, yeah, I studied, I learned, I Google, I talked to doctors a lot all the way through the process. But so by the time I got to that point, I was pretty squared away emotionally and mentally to face it.
But I have heard a lot of people never get to that point. A lot of people really struggle with that's a hard fact to get to Joey. So trigger, have you met your donor family? No, but I put the question I would love to.
Interesting story, two different people have brought up facts and accounts of the exact same person I was living in Georgia at the time. And the same name came up as a possible donor to get a car accident happened on the very day I got the phone call. So we're all pretty buzzed and jazzed about it, but I have not got that acknowledgement that the family wants to meet me yet. And so a lot of our families say, what do you say?
Have you thought about that when you do get a chance to meet? What things you want to convey? Yeah, first off, it's thank you. God bless you.
This is the most amazing thing because at the very end, the doctors never said it, but I was so close to passing the kidney failure, not kicked in, but I knew I was getting real close to that teetering line. My brother and his girlfriend told me afterwards, we check on your everyday expecting you to be dead. So my first thing is going to be thank you for the amazing gift of the family over to give it to me. And second, it wasn't wasted.
I am giving back. I'm living this life. I'm back on my feet. And I'm back on my feet, far above what the doctors said I would be.
They told me about disabilities and setbacks. And I'm not hiking and camping and going through the high country. So I would love to tell them it wasn't wasted. A little of energy too.
I love it. And I love it in your story just from birth like you won't survive. You can't do that. This obstacle is in your way.
And then you're like, no, it's not. Watch me. Well, I love it. Like if you had me, yeah, and that's that's just been part of my mindset, my whole life.
The doctors have got to bed 24 hours after transplant. They said, give them what? I told my doctor, you're absolutely crazy. Five days later, I walked out hands-free without a cane out the front door of the male clinic with my mother.
That is crazy. And just so everyone understands, you know, when he mentioned the hemoglobin of three, you know, that's a blood count. That's your red blood cells and everything. Technically, it signifies that he had a severe anemia.
And just to put it into perspective, we transfuse or you needed a blood transfusion at about 10 or so. So three times more than what he had, you're already getting blood transfusions. So that's that's I haven't seen very often in my career. My, I don't know, 20, whatever years as a nurse, anybody walking and talking with with a three, it is remarkable.
It is unbelievable. It's very good to do. It's true. It's a lot to inspire.
Come on, Shurka. There we go. Well, and just kind of the tech on to that, Joey, the doctors said we're going to admit you and we're going to hang four bags of blood. And I heard a nurse say it out loud.
We've never hung four bags of blood on a living person. So it is, it is one of those mind-boggling things to wrap around. Yeah. Shurka, so your story really is one of resilience and perseverance and getting back up when you feel down.
What would you say to people who might be listening who are feeling like they can't get back up? Yeah, no, that's great, sir, because it's day by day, it's hour by hour. And I really tell people find the new thing you can do. It may not be what you once did, but you can still do great, amazing things with meaning and purpose.
So when I got sick and got sicker, I began to use my creative skills at the Public Speaker and Broadcaster. And I saw the right movie scripts, TV scripts. I found a different outlet for what I naturally do. And that's a lot of repurposing and don't lose that ability to give back, to do something.
Because no matter where you at, there always is that upside. And also, be as real as you can with your friends and your family. They will rally around you, love on you, support you. And I had great family support, even though I went through a divorce through the entire process as well.
My mom and dad, my brother, all rallied around in a way that I could never, ever give back. So, Trigger, there has to be a correlation between the people you work with who are recovering from addiction and your second chance at life through transplantation. Can you tell us how that has helped you be a support person for them? Yeah, really, that has been amazing correlation, something I never expected.
But I actually worked with them before my transplant and before the liver failure. So I already knew their pains, their hardships, their struggles. They have jobs and families and careers that have been blown up by the addictions and all the legal things that pop into it and it really sets their life askew and out of control. And they don't have hope.
They don't have purpose in trying to put it back together. So when I went through my part of it, now I can really understand it is emotional, it is spiritual, it is mental. So my everything has gone to a whole new level. And now when I do talk to them, I have something more to relate to them.
Because I know it's like to not have a job. I know it's like to show up and not be able to fully show up and to have your family destroyed by something that's really painful. And so yeah, it is a huge correlation and it has been a bridge now where people can go, you know what? He's one of us.
He does understand what it means to be at that lowest point and still find hope. And it's been a powerful tool. Oh my gosh. OK, so I found you on YouTube, watch some of your videos.
I'm like, OK, we're going to be friends. But tell us what you'd like to do. You travel, you book, like if people want to reach out to you, maybe they need some of your special skill sets. You know, tell us about you.
Yeah, no, thank you. I do travel. I do travel. I love to go around and speak on the whole define the odds again, whether it's the liver, transplants, story, the organ donation side of it or just public speaking, the leadership side.
So I love to travel. You give me a microphone any place. I'm going to have a great time with you. I don't know.
It was my friend. And so, yeah, I'm on social media, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channel. And those YouTube channel videos are snippets of larger talks that I get. So they're all condensed versions that give you a sample of what I might do in your arena.
And that's just like free resources, free resource to help people out. So we're just searching for rich trigger. Rich trigger. Yeah, I mean, you find one, you can find all the other.
Yeah, a bunch popped up. I was like, he's busy. I like it. Also, also there is richbondtrager.net.
That's the master website. You can find me that way as well. And we'll make sure we have all that in our show notes. So for those of you who are listening, you can find them easily.
All right, trigger. It was such an honor to get to know you today. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us here on The Gifted Life. Thanks for having me on.
It's been a great time, you guys. All right. So if you have something that maybe you can reach out to trigger, please do that. And we hope to have you back here on The Gifted Life.
Thanks, sir. Thank you very much. All the Gifted Life podcast today, taking a moment for mental health with Miss Sarah. Yeah, I don't know.
I've got a lot of anxiety waiting for it. We've got like a topic. This should be fun. I anxious.
All right. Today, we're going to talk about how to battle and security. Oh, Joe, that's why I'm anxious. Okay.
Well, you know, everybody has insecurities, right? And especially everybody. She's perfect. Okay.
And especially, you know, and right now with social media, again, there's just so much connection, so much comparison that it's easy to kind of fall in that trap of over insecurity, I would say. So what can we do to change that? How do we battle? So don't log on to social media.
I was going to say, you're all going to pull a lot about how great our lives are. Don't compare yourself to others. Yes. As a mom, that's tough because you want to do the best you can.
I bet. I'm sure there's times like when you see something on social media and you're like, well, I don't do that for my kid. They're going to go up tough. So one thing you can do is again, the way you gain self-esteem is by doing a steamable axe.
So turn that attention away from yourself and turn it to others who are in need. Find something that is a steamable act. What makes you what? You know, be a good human.
You know, volunteering, finding your passion, working in a field or finding your purpose or something that brings you down. You're a good. Chief clinical officer making life happen. Breaking through glass ceiling.
That's right. Yeah. I feel such a solid person. So that's definitely one way.
Another thing is just surround yourself with people who see your strengths, who see the good in you. You're around friends and family who love you and who tell you that you're doing great. Oh, yeah, you're circle. You're an equal.
Yes. Time for it to tell me how great I am. Another really good way is to challenge those negative thoughts. So that inner dialogue, when you have a negative thought about yourself, challenge it with something that you know you're good at or something that you like about yourself.
Just give yourself a quick little challenge. Do that internally. My insecurities often are very specific. Mm hmm.
You know, I don't have like this generalized insecurity about life. I feel very comfortable in my shoes, except when I do certain things like put up microphone in my face and have to get up in public or whatever. That's where I feel it. So so what should I do in those situations?
Because it's hard for me to just visualize myself as great as I am at a lot of things in that situation being great. Well, I think we're all getting anxious to about always making fun. I just wasn't a loud thing. Well, I think that's a really good point.
You can really feel insecure about if you have like a presentation at work that you're very anxious about challenge yourself with, I'm good at this and I know what I'm doing and there's a reason I'm up here speaking. So give that negative internal dialogue a challenge with something positive and something that's true. You guys, I just went to the mechanic and I said, when you turn left, it goes, I know, what's that down? Like, what do you think it is?
I kind of it just squeaks up and is it a squeaker? I don't know. Like, oh, I was had hives. I did this.
Probably not insecure about what you don't know. When the truth is, why would you need to know that? That's why you're bringing them to a mechanic, an expert. Right.
So that I'll eat it all thick. Like because you all are awesome. We still have a fixed, but it's fine. I probably need you to solve, but feel a little better when she realized there's a reason I'm not an expert in this and there are.
When they couldn't find anything else out, I thought, I'm good. I didn't know either. And another just really quick way that you can kind of battle in security is when you're talking to yourself instead of saying, I use your name. So speak about yourself in the third person.
So Sarah, it just brings your humanity back into the conversation. You're not an I who you can just beat up. It's you bringing yourself back into it. Joy speaks in third person.
We hit that bad shot. You want to play and go? We learned this on a podcast episode. People like to hear their first names and if you're saying it, that's even better.
Right. Lori, way to go. I'm gonna wrap it up. You're ready?
All right, guys. Good talk. Maybe you have something you want Sarah to cover. You can send us an email at info at the gift of life.org.
And every episode of the gift of life, we honor a hero. Today, we honor Jeremy, Paul Lee, she wrote. Jerry was what we called him. Jerry was 13 years old when he died.
He was riding on his bike and was struck by a car in Chalmette, Louisiana. His cousin Stephanie was born a few months later. She never met him, but she talks like she knew him. She feels that Jeremy is her guardian angel.
Jerry's other cousin, Christian, became an organ donor later. These boys will live on through other people. They will always be missed and loved. And now we pause and say thank you to Jeremy and Christian for the gifts of life.
And our question and answer segment today. Can a recovering addict obtain a transplant? The short answer, Laurie, is yes. That is to say, though, with a caveat during the workup process for obtaining a transplant, if you need a transplant, the transplant center does medical workup, social workup and a psychological workup.
And part of that is to try to ensure if you have been using, whether it's drugs or alcohol, that you won't then go ahead and do the same damage to the gift that you've been given. So they have to see that you're actively participating in recovery and trying to be, you know, being a recovering addict as opposed to still, you know, being addicted and still going through those initial phases of trying to recover. And guys, we want to hear from you. So please email us your questions at info at the gift of life.org or give us a call at 5046483477.
Episode 122 of the gifted life in the books. Yeah, special thanks to Rich. Trigger, bond, trigger. I have to say, hey, trigger, trigger.
Good job. How much resiliency? Wow. The many, many times he bounced back and of course paying his gift forward by telling his story.
Defying the odds. I loved it. I enjoyed that visit, guys. Listen, maybe we inspired you to become an organ, I and tissue donor.
You can do that anytime. Register me dot org and remember the best place to find us is on our website, the gifted life dot org and wherever you listen to us on Apple podcast, Google podcast, make sure you leave us a five star rating so we can find more people. Yes. And you can find us also on social media, Facebook, the gifted life podcast, Twitter and Instagram at gifted life pod.
We hope to inspire you. We have to spur those healthy conversations about organ tissue and eye donation. We're a team guys. So we hope that you go out and do something you would normally do to help us make life happen.
It's that easy. We'll talk to you soon. This is a production of Loba. The Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency, the gifted life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Buudro and Sarah Blakemore, our executive producer is Kirsten Heins, producer Isha Long Caraway, intern is Rebecca Rannam and we are recorded, engineered and mixed in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.